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Youth volunteers help fully renovate century home in city's south end

Devon Craig and his wife Danica thank a crowd of Habitat for Humanity Sarnia-Lambton partners as they receive keys to their new home Thursday afternoon. Nearly 150 Habitat volunteers -- including students from five city schools -- renovated a century home on Alfred Street in order for the Craig family to purchase it through the Habitat program. Pictured here with their parents are Ziya, 6, and Kreelyn, 2. (Barbara Simpson/Sarnia Observer/Postmedia Network)

“You are a part of our family now,” he told the MacLachlans during a key ceremony Thursday afternoon. “All of the memories you have in here will continue to go on because they will be an addition to new memories being built by my children.”

Nearly 150 volunteers fully renovated the MacLachlans' former fire-damaged century home for the Craig family to purchase it through Habitat for Humanity's home ownership program.

Students from Lambton College and four city high schools lent their muscle to the project, making it Habitat's third youth build and 35th project to date. Youth members of Sacred Heart and St. Michael's Catholic parishes also helped out on the renovation, as well as several corporate volunteer teams.

For Ken MacLachlan, he said Habitat volunteers “succeeded while we failed” in restoring the “grand old lady” he and his wife purchased back in 2004.

“We knew with a little polish and love she could be the star on the street,” he said Thursday. “Unfortunately, events occurred in our lives where we never had a chance to bring her to her majestic glory.”

Built around 1895, the two-storey Alfred Street house would have been constructed during the era of a bustling Cleveland-Sarnia Sawmill operating along the Sarnia Bay, streetcars running from Davis Street to Point Edward, and the construction of the original St. Clair River tunnel.

“Habitat for Humanity Sarnia-Lambton is delighted to have been part of breathing new life into this grande dame, and to hopefully shoring up the foundation and the walls to withstand another 121 years,” Habitat executive director Sarah Reaume said Thursday.

After moving from British Columbia to Sarnia nearly four years ago, the Craig family had been living in low-income housing while they got on their feet in a new community.

Devon, who works at the Atelka call centre and Lambton County Developmental Services, and his stay-at-home wife Danica had long dreamed of owning a character home with a bedroom for each of their three children: Ziya, 6, Noah, 4, and Kreelyn, 2.

But it wasn't until Danica's mother encouraged them to apply for Habitat's home ownership program that they saw their dream finally become a reality.

And now the Craigs hope to spread their good fortune to others through their faith.

“We'll serve the community,” Devon Craig said. “We have a home that we can now serve out of. We will do our best to make this house a home for anyone who needs to come. Even if it's just to sit and have a coffee, our doors are always open because this is my community.”